Gordon's Thoughts On Open-Source GPU Drivers

[leif81]

Dude, if you don't do Linux for the Freedom, just go get yourself a copy of OSX and live a happy life.

Where's the like button. +Like.

[deanjo]

The first thing Windows gamers do on a fresh Windows install is download and install the latest video driver. It's not like people just can't handle the concept of doing this.

You would think this is the case but as any tech can tell you all to often even gamers are using the OS supplied drivers. Fortunately MS offers drivers that are up to the task by default in most cases. Vendor supplied drivers are also part of the windows updates.

[millerthegorilla]

Firstly, I'm kindof into freedom myself in a reasonably large way.

Secondly, I would like to encourage the idea amongst you tiny-tots that there isn't really that much evil out there in the world. The more you see, the more there will be. Simply people trying to work hard to feed their kids or keep up with their neighbours. When one spends so much time in front of a computer sharing the IT fear of the majority user case, one is bound to end up a little polarised.

Thirdly, I'd like to point out that the biggest problem that engenders war and suffering in our world (traditionally and currently) is an overstretched economy and fragile economy. Consider it like an overtight trampoline. The more overstretched it is the more a small disturbance to it will rocket out of control. Then consider for some time the effects of software for money in terms of the gross profit to net expenditure that can be generated by non-free software.
Money grows on trees as an attractive easy take for banana eating monkeys means that things like record company profits and Windows, OSX (in particular), and other forms of money for nothing are the greatest contributors to strife and hardship in the known history of mankind.

Finally, if anyone can suggest a good place to notify someone linuxish of a DSDT and DRIVER mod that might enable 3dGFX on a VN896 chip on a fujitsuu siemens AMILO-PRO then I'd be grateful.

[millerthegorilla]

ps. In my experience, very few average end users of Windows update their GFX drivers when playing games.

[locovaca]

@Gordon,
You know what's REALLY dangerous to the Linux desktop? Drivers that are a nightmare to install, update, remove. Ones that don't reliably support basic desktop needs; multi monitor, KMS, sleep/suspend, etc. Ones that break with kernel upgrades. Ones that won't even work with new releases of Xorg!! I'm looking at you proprietary drivers.

I'll stick with the drivers that come with my distro ( Fedora ) thankyou. Lets walk before we run.

KMS is not a "basic desktop need." Distributions worked just before it came around, and they still continue to work just fine without it when using non-KMS drivers. It is no more necessary than Compiz.

And perhaps the issue is not with the closed source drivers but with a Kernel and Xorg API that changes multiple times a year.

[Saist]

My only real comment for the article is simple.

What UT3 situation? Microsoft paid Epic to kill the release. Plain and simple.

That's not an issue. That's Microsoft being Microsoft.

[deanjo]

My only real comment for the article is simple.

What UT3 situation? Microsoft paid Epic to kill the release. Plain and simple.

That's not an issue. That's Microsoft being Microsoft.

Pure speculation with absolutely nothing to back that up. In otherword FUD.

[RealNC]

As I said in the other thread in the General Discussion, I disagree with him on this. For 90% of people the open source drivers are fine. It's literally a small minority of people who intend to run serious 3D work/games.

It's a small minority because of this. It's the chicken-egg problem. There can't be more than a small minority simply because Windows is much better at this, so those users prefer Windows over Linux and only the small minority stays with Linux.

[yogi_berra]

And perhaps the issue is not with the closed source drivers but with a Kernel and Xorg API that changes multiple times a year.

Nah, kernel and X devs are infallible. Broken API's and ABI's are impossible to stop.

[Melcar]

ps. In my experience, very few average end users of Windows update their GFX drivers when playing games.

Yeah. Most just use whatever their box comes with. If they update at all, it will be by way of the Windows Update service (which on occasions does update certain device drivers). Once they start having certain issues, then a common troubleshooting option is to update drivers.